ODORIFEROUS GRASSES OF INDIA AND CEYLON. 123 



impost upon its cultivation. This grass is known on this side of 

 India as Valeru and Vala, and is used in some provinces as a thatch- 

 ing material or as fodder. When young, it is eaten by buffaloes. 

 The roots, named Kashas, are used in making the fragrant fans and 

 tatties. It is said that the roots are exported to Europe, where 

 they are employed in perfumery, and they are used in India in 

 cases of fever, in the form of an infusion, &c. 



In the Jhang Settlemont Report it is stated that its tough roots 

 are used in making ropes, and also that the brush employed by the 

 weavers for arranging the threads of the web-baskets are made 

 of the stems. In Oudh a perfume called liar is extracted and used 

 medicinally. (See Dymock's "Vegetable Materia Medica" and 

 Duthie's "Fodder Grasses," plate 24.) 



All the Andropogons mentioned above have been described by 

 various authors, but the following, as far as my knowledge and 

 reading go, has not been described by any ; I have therefore named 

 it A. odoratus. 



It is known to the natives as Gawat WedL I came across it 

 whilst arranging plants and dissecting spikelets of grasses for 

 Dr. Lisboa. 



Description. — Culm erect, 3 — 5 ft. high, sometimes branching 

 from the lower part, glabrous ; nodes long bearded. Leaves 

 lanceolate, cordate at the base, acute or acuminate, with a few long 

 hairs; the lower cauline and radicle leaves long, the upper small, 

 but their sheaths very long. Ligula small. Spikes numerous, erect, 

 branched, pedicellate (the pedicel of the lower spikes longer), 

 and congested at the end of a long peduncle without a sheathing 

 bract and forming an f erect, dense, ovoid panicle. The rachis, 

 pedicel, and the spikes covered with long silky hairs. Spikelets 

 nearly two lines long, of a purple colour, the sessile and the 

 pedicellate nearly similar ; outer glume of the sessile spikelet rather 

 thin, many-nerved, somewhat obtuse and covered with long silky 

 hairs, with a pit in some spikelets of the same plant and absent in 

 others; second glume as long as the first or a little longer, but broader, 

 thin, and keeled ; third glume thinner and hyaline ; fourth glume 

 smaller or an awn \ — 1 inch long, with an hermaphrodite flower at the 

 end of the pedicel. Pedicel of the pedicellate spikelet covered with 

 white hairs, but the spikelet almost free of hairs. Outer glume stiff, 

 with five or more nerves, not prominent, almost obtuse; second glume 

 thinner, with three nerves, somewhat broader, but as long as the first ; 

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